


Treacle

by hitchhikingbabeh



Category: K-pop, SHINee
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2020-05-12 11:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19228663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitchhikingbabeh/pseuds/hitchhikingbabeh





	Treacle

> _[s](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Du3RAU0T2RC4&t=ZGQxMzdhZTU2ODExYWM1YzQ0ZDlhZGI4ZDAyNjk1M2ZiMzRiNThmNSx6dDVSUXhSeA%3D%3D&b=t%3AcXtpvFymmD9Dd4fNv0MUqQ&p=https%3A%2F%2Fhitchhikingbabeh.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F107970823343%2Ftreacle-t&m=1)he will love all the above, past and present, fast forward_

It hurts when Taemin is away. There is no one way to put what you feel in words when he’s absent. It’s an irrational chill straight to the bone, like a weight in the chest like there’s an anvil lying on top of you, and deep down, in the dead centre of your heart, there’s a pain that you can’t describe, but that is so real and so pungent that you find yourself tossing and turning in your bed at night. He hasn’t called and he hasn’t texted and you miss him so much you want to get angry, but you can’t.

You can’t because this is not in your nature. You’re the one person he can always be sure will be patient with him, the one person that understands that his life is almost like having no life, the one person that will wait for him however long waiting is necessary and still greets him with a bright smile and a warm embrace. That is why he chose you to be with. But it’s different this time. When he does come home, he looks half-dead. He’s been working out, which normally you would find perfectly fine, but at the rate that he’s going, every time he walks through your threshold he looks more and more broken. He refuses to talk to you about whatever strict regiments he’s under, but you know that it’s not good. So you try to encourage him to eat and drink all of his favourite things when he does come home, but he can only take two or three bites before falling asleep completely because as hungry as he could be, he’s ten times more exhausted. You’ve definitely noticed, and he knows that you have, too.

So, why haven’t you said anything? 

Why haven’t you told him that you’re worried, that you want him to be healthy, that he should come home more often so you can pamper him to death and hopefully make him smile? All you’re doing right now is getting angry one-sidedly. You want to blame his managers, his company head, for pushing him to the very extreme, you want to blame him because he’s been doing this for so long that he fails to see all the damage that it’s doing, you want to blame whatever drove him to choose this path of fame and glory and respect and utter self-destruction. 

But of course, you can’t do that either. 

There is nothing in the world that makes Taemin happier than standing on a stage, singing and dancing his heart out and getting screams of pure elation in return, and you never once thought that you wanted to get in the way from that. You don’t want to admit it out loud, but you really feel like he’s lost the ability to live his life as your Taemin and as SHINee’s Taemin. Or Taemin’s Taemin, for that matter.

A sniffle escapes you as you entertain the idea of a life without him, because you never thought that was something you ever had to grasp. But every sleepless night for months now, every hour spent in tears, every second spent in utter fear has driven you to the worst, darkest corners of yourself. You don’t want him to see you like this. You almost don’t want to see him at all.

Why do you let your feelings build up like this? Tears burn at the back of your eyes as you sit quietly in your living room. All of the lights are off, and you can’t find it in you to get up and shut the French doors that lead out to the balcony, even though the autumn chill gusting from it is making you shiver. It’s surprisingly painful to keep all of your feelings bottled up. It’s never been difficult in the past, keeping these things to yourself was basically how you used to be able to be with Taemin, and you’ve never broken down or let your selfish needs get in the way of the harmony that usually flows between you. 

This feels like you’re down to your last. 

You have to say something, anything, because you need to feel connected to him again, you need to make him understand that no matter what, after the hype of the job and the screams of the fans and the support of his members, he has you. He has you to talk to, complain to, brag to, celebrate with and feel and touch and love and be certain that if there is one person that will always reciprocate, it is you. 

But you’re a coward.

You hear him slide the key to the apartment into the lock, and you quickly dry your eyes with the sleeve of your shirt. You’re not one to cry very easily, but Taemin can see when sadness seeps through your irises better than anyone you’ve ever known, so you don’t turn around to greet him. His footsteps are heavy, almost dragged, and you’re not certain but he may have mumbled a greeting of some sort. Whenever he comes home this tired, his slurred speech will usually make you smile and motivate you to pour him a glass of beer when his voice is both tired and exasperated, or banana milk when it’s softer and more tender. Tonight, he sounds like a dead man walking, so you wait for him to come around to the sofa and lift your arms from your legs as he deliberately throws himself into the furniture, his head landing squarely on your lap.

He shifts onto his back and his eyes shutter closed before he heaves a small sigh. You instinctively move your hands to play with his hair, a little sweaty but mostly silky smooth, like it’s always been. He draws the tiniest smile at the touch, because he loves how your hands know exactly where to go and where to caress to help him relax. 

He can’t manage much movement at the minute, but if he could, he’d definitely lean up and kiss you. 

As you play with the delicate dark strands of his hair, you start to notice that the circles under his eyes have gotten deeper and darker, that his lips are more chapped than usual, that his cheekbones are so much sharper, and yet again you have to fight off tears. It feels like he’s sand that’s cascading through your fingers whenever you try to hold on to pieces of him, it feels like he’s slipping away so quickly.

“Did you have dinner?” you choke out, although considering the time it is now, asking him if he’s had breakfast might be more appropriate. He nods once and his smile widens by a centimeter, and you find yourself trying to break into a smile of your own. 

“Let’s go to bed,” he responds, his voice hoarse and thick as he turns to his side and nuzzles closer to you. You mutter the smallest ‘okay’ before he raises himself up with much more difficulty than you expected. You grab hold of his hands and help him to stand, and he swings both of your arms as you walk into your bedroom. He falls face down onto his side with a whoosh, and you almost want to smile because he looks quite comical, sprawled like a starfish with his shoes still on and his face still made up. Suddenly, he lifts up an arm and opens his palm, a silent invitation for you to join him. A few seconds pass, and when you don’t respond, he spreads his palm wider and lets out a small grunt. Another few seconds go by, and he raises his head and cranes it back a bit to look up at you.

“Cuddles?”

You can’t do this anymore. This isn’t supposed to hurt, but you feel like you’ve been stabbed right in the heart. A voice in your head screams that this is what you want, that this is exactly what you’ve been waiting for, but it feels wrong. He looks so frail and thin and plain unhealthy, and you know that you can’t make it better.

The fakest smile you’ve ever attempted to draw decorates your face as you move to take off his shoes and socks, and it’s still there when you’ve gone in and out of the bathroom to get makeup remover. He turns on his side and faces you as you kneel next to him and free his face of the foundation that’s too light for his gorgeous bronze skin, the brownish reds that obscure the beauty of his bright eyes, the pink stains that darken the color of his lips. You even go as far as patting his face with that one cream that makes his face flawlessly bright and clear, the one he has to wear every night in order to keep his game face in top shape. He’s smiling the entire time, too, because the fact that you know exactly how his nightly routines go to the point where you can do them for him makes his heart rate increase quite dramatically. Once he’s ready and you’ve gotten up to walk over to put the cosmetics back in their place, he grabs you by the hips and pulls you against him, and you only have enough room to stretch your arms out to place the items in your bedside table before he ensnares you completely and pulls the duvet over the both of you.

Taemin’s not one for heavy affection, but nights like this are his favorite, when his head is almost buried into the crook of your neck and his breathing is tunneling through your skin. He’s always been enchanted with how soft your skin is, how your hair always smells like pineapples and how you’re always so ridiculously warm, and it usually lulls him to sleep in minutes. Not tonight, though. He hasn’t told you, but he’s due back at work in about an hour and a half for a recording, and he simply refused to not spend at least five minutes with you in his arms. The fact that the studio is conveniently close to your apartment is an added bonus that brings another smile to his face as he tightens his grip around you. 

He waits until your breathing gets heavier, until your muscles finally relax before he gradually releases you. He watches as you naturally settle into sleep, and wonders when you’d last slept so soundly. He knows that you tend to worry, especially those nights when he doesn’t come home. He asks himself how you might be doing at work, if that one new assistant still flirts with you and brings you coffee every morning, if your boss is as neurotic as ever. He wonders if you’ve spoken to your siblings this week, he wonders if they’re doing well. He can’t remember the last time you both had a conversation that lasted over ten minutes, and a pang of guilt strikes him.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he whispers into your ear, so low he hardly hears his own voice, “I promise. I really will.”

His phone starts to vibrate erratically. 

A sigh. 

Time to go.

Yet again he has to force himself to disentangle his body from yours, when in reality there is nothing that would make him happier than to actually see the sun come up with his hands around your waist, or in your hair, just anywhere within reach of you. He wonders yet again why he chose to lead this kind of life, but the answer has always been because he wanted to. Because he loves to sing, he loves to dance, he loves to perform. He was born to love the stage, to love music, to love you.

So he’ll never give up anything, not his career, not you. He will succeed, and he will love you until he takes his last breath. That’s why there’s still a lilt in his step as he puts his shoes back on and settles the blankets over your frame, that’s why he’s smiling as he shuts the door behind him when he leaves, because he already can’t wait for the moment when his arms are around you again.

That night, when he returns, you’re on the couch, in the same exact spot you’d been yesterday. You’re sniffling this time, audibly so, and the room is pitch dark and eerily quiet. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, but you just shake your head. 

“I just finished watching Kyungsoo’s drama,” is your excuse, and a damn good one because he’s seen it as well and he can understand why anyone would burst into tears at that final episode. That night he manages a good few hours of sleep with you pulled against his chest, and you’re long gone to dreamland by the time he tip-toes out for rehearsal.

The next night, you’re asleep on the couch, but there are traces of black in the dried streams of tears that had run down your face, and there’s an empty bottle of wine right next to the remote control. There’s no accompanying glass, and Taemin looks around to find it shattered to pieces in the kitchen.

Something’s wrong.

He starts to move towards you, but the moment he gets close, you start to whimper, and tears flood out of your eyes. Now all he wants is to wake you up, ask you what’s wrong and what he can do to fix it, but you clutch harder onto the sofa cushion in your arms, so he has to tell himself that it’ll pass. It was probably a bad dream, or an argument with your sister that had gone too far. So he carries you to bed (staggering for most of the time, and he had no idea his muscles had gotten that weak) and lays you down, wrapping his arms around your waist the second he can and pulling you against him, and God, he’s so hungry, but he has to stay on that ridiculous body management regiment until next week, so he focuses on running his hands through your hair and kissing the curve of your shoulder until he’s not strong enough to resist sleep.

The next morning you’re awake before he is. Day has only just decided to break, but over the course of the night you’ve made several decisions yourself. You need some time off. Otherwise you might lose yourself completely to the insanity that is the love of your life, and what the love of his life comes with. You leave Taemin a note, and an extremely half-assed one at that. You say that your family needs you and that you’ll be away, and ask him to wait for your call.

You never sign any kind of note with ‘ _goodbye_ ’. It’s always something cute and uplifting, like ‘ _love you_ ’ or ‘ _miss you_ ’ or ‘ _chin up_ ’ or ‘ _be back in a flash_ ’. Never ‘goodbye’. He’s so worried when he wakes up that he misses all of his morning schedules. He calls your sister, who has no idea where you’ve gone, and then he calls your family, and after some very broken conversation, it dawns on him that you’ve lied to him, actually lied to him. He should be angry at you, fuming even, but he’s so scared of losing you that the tears that spring to his eyes are only figments of the overflowing sadness circulating through him. He calls your best friend next, who gives him several ideas as to where you might be, but none result in anything. 

The only consolation he has is that your passport is still inside your safe, along with all of your jewelry, which at least gives him the certainty that you haven’t left the country. He’s also surprised to see that the ring that he gave you a year ago, the one with tiny diamond studs that string together a heart, the one that you’re always afraid to wear around for fear of damaging any part of it, is missing from its box in the very safe. He doesn’t want to think that you’ve thrown it off your window or anything like that. Instead he drags his feet to his afternoon schedules holding on to the possibility that you might just be wearing it, constantly gazing at it, smiling at it.

You don’t come home that night. Or the next. Or the one after that.

Jinki tells him you might want some space, and that it’s only fair he gives it to you. So he tries to cope. He goes to see the hyungs at the dorm between schedules, even if they do spend most of their time together. He tries to laugh more. He goes out on a bar-crawl with Minho and Jonghyun one night, brings home too much soju and fried chicken the next, which he shares with Kibum and Jinki, and the five decide to blow off work for the entirety of the third day, preferring to organise an impromptu live chat and infinite hilarious Instagram posts and tweets. You’ve only been mentioned casually, and Taemin is grateful. Your best friend texts him eventually, tells him that you’d taken a ferry to Jeju for some time with the ocean, and it sounds just like you. She doesn’t tell him when you’re coming back, but he smiles knowing that at least there is a place he can picture you in now.

But the smiles don’t last. When the clock marks seven days since he last saw your face, the only thing that can take his mind off of you is work. So work he does. His hyungs watch him exhaust himself, knowing there is nothing that will ever distract Lee Taemin when he sets his eyes on something. They try to sneak in chocolates and cookies and banana milk between meals, but Taemin opts for going to the practice room instead of lunch, running through Jonghyun’s new composition one last time before recording, reading through the script one last time before his guest appearance on this or that variety show.

He’s breaking. He can tell because it’s so hard to wake up in the mornings, because he can see nearly all of his ribs when he looks in the mirror. You’re destroying him and he should hate you for it. But he doesn’t. If you affect him this much, it must be because only being with you will make it better. Now he spends nights silently begging the night for answers. He finds comfort in the darkness of the violet and blue hues, finds himself more alert, more able to think about where you are and what you might be doing. It’s only when the coloring turns darkest when he can almost hear your voice, singing that one song you’ve always loved, and heaven knows he misses your voice. 

He tells himself it’ll get better. You’ll come back. He knows you will.

It’s at the ninth night when he walks through your apartment and finds you sitting on the couch, and a bunch of luggage right by the doorstep. He didn’t even mean to come here, but he’d forgotten his dorm keys here last night, when he’d drunkenly stumbled in yet again to ponder when you might return. And he’s a little tipsy today as well after having gone out with Jongin to celebrate his group winning yet another bunch of incredible awards, which makes his cloudy head so much more susceptible to the more sorrowful corners of his mind.

You don’t turn around when you hear him come in. It’s mostly because you’re trying your best to keep your battle face on. It’s time for you to let go. It’s time for you to let yourself let him go. The apartment has been stripped bare, mostly, your entire life packed into the suitcases neatly piled by the front door. You almost wish it wasn’t the first thing he saw when he walked in, or even the second, but there’s nothing you can do about it now.

“Jagiya!”

You shut your eyes, still not turning around, but you can feel your willpower starting to stumble. You stand up, wipe your eyes of the tears that you’d been fighting for the past hour, and take a deep breath.

“Hey.”

He doesn’t like it when you give your back to him, because it’s not like you. Once upon a time, when he had fallen head over feet for everything about you and you had no idea, when you would spend whole nights speaking of nothing and everything over wine or beer or a nicely made dinner or bad takeout, you’d let your tongue run with your mind and told him that your favorite thing in the world was looking into people’s eyes. You’d said that there was something so incredibly visceral about looking into another person’s eyes as they spoke that made them so remarkably beautiful. You’d confessed that you are convinced that whole worlds are encompassed in these windows to the soul, of which others can only catch mere glimpses. Since that moment, he always looks for the adventures running wild in your own eyes, for slivers of happiness and pain and anxiety and bliss. Not being able to look into your eyes for nine painful nights has made him weak to even the presence of you, yet he has the strength to take two small, insecure steps in your direction.

“Hey,” he says back, and only then does he feel that his heart is hammering against his ribcage, the sound resonating throughout his whole body. Anxiety creeps up on him next, but he tries to shove it away and concentrate on the fact that you’re back, that you’re there, right there with him. His heart pleads for him to close the remaining distance between you, because he needs to feel like he’s okay again. 

But you don’t move, so he can’t bring himself to, either.

“We need to talk.”

For the next few seconds, his sense of hearing shuts down completely. One more glance around and he really takes note of the luggage by the door, of the walls, once filled with pictures and posters and portraits and bad drawings sent to you by your niece, completely bare. And then he registers the words that have just slipped from your mouth. It kickstarts his whole being, and in two seconds he’s behind you, his arms around your hips and his chin tucked into the crook of your neck, and he’s already breathing significantly heavier because he wants to ignore what you just said and pretend those words don’t exist.

“Taemin,” your tone is flat, almost calculatedly so.

“No,” is his answer, and it makes your eyes shut and your teeth sink into your lower lip. He nuzzles into you, clutching tighter when you try to pry away his arms, causing your eyes to burn.

“Let me go, Taemin,” your words are heavily layered, because he knows that you don’t mean just letting you go right now. He knows that you mean letting you go for good. 

“No.”

“I can’t do this anymore,” and you mean it. You can’t stand to look at him and know that you’ll never be able to protect him, that no one will because no one can, but you can’t help that it is all that you ever wanted. To call him yours and have it mean that he is. To take him and all of his imperfections and give him everything you are. He doesn’t answer you, but his breath catches and he brings his arms up around your waist, pulling you harder against him. 

“I need you to let go of me,” you go on, and you feel as he raises his head till his mouth is right by your ear, and he presses a kiss almost as if saying that he’s never going to let that happen. Your eyes burn harder because this is even more difficult than you could have imagined.

“I don’t want to love you anymore.”

In that very instant, his arms drop from your frame. Those words are your sword, and you have effectively pierced him right through the chest. But he moves no further, and you close your eyes as you wait, and equip yourself with smaller daggers, more lies, to fight with.

“I don’t believe you.”

The first set of tears roll down. “Taemin, please,” your voice is cracking all over because you don’t want to draw this out, it’s too painful. “Please, I don’t want to be with you.” But he only covers one of his hands with your own before his mouth nears your ear again. 

“I don’t believe you.”

Your lips tremble, along with your weapons, and just as you expected, everything in your body screams at you to stop this, erase any trace of your wishes to leave him behind. But you endure. “You don’t mean anything you’ve said since I walked through that door,” there is surprising strength in Taemin’s voice, and it colors your features with fear of what he might say next. 

“I do,” you lie, not being able to silence the whimper that follows your words. 

“No,” he even smiles. 

“Why are you doing this?” you ask him, already feeling yourself starting to shatter.

“Because I know that Key hyung makes me take multiple vitamin supplements every single day only because you make him do it,” he begins, and your breathing gets hard and heavy as your knees start to grow weak. 

“Because Minho hyung told me he always texts you when I get injured, at practice or otherwise, so you always have muscle pain patches ready when I come home, and that’s how you always know where it hurts and how to soothe the pain,” you’re crying outright at this point. You never imagined that he’d ever find out about any of this, and it hurts that his tone is so sweet and so grateful. 

“Because Jinki hyung told me he calls you the moment I say that I have one of my famous cravings,” your knees give way at this point, but he’s right there to catch you, and you both softly land on the cold wooden floor. “And that’s how you know exactly what to surprise me with when I come back.” You’ve asked him to stop about a dozen times, but he only cradles you closer.

“I don’t believe you because Jonghyun hyung admitted that you make him tell you whenever I mention where I want to travel, which ridiculous things I want to add to my yearly to-do lists, and that’s how you’ve planned every anniversary, every holiday, every event even if it’s not a special day,” he hates to hear you crying this hard, but this is all he can do to stop you from leaving him. 

“How can you expect me to just let you walk away?”

You don’t expect him to let you, but you’re so convinced you have to make him let you go, but you’re starting to falter because you’re starting to remember who you’re walking away from, what he means to you… 

“I love you,” he’s right in your ear again and your heart is beating a thousand times per second because you know he’s not lying, “I love you so damn much it’s ridiculous. Everyone knows it, I’m actually pretty pathetically in love with you and I think what we are is the stuff of fairytales,” he even has the nerve to chuckle. “And I know that it’s never easy or rosy with us, but I’m always going to fight for you. I’m not home until I walk through that door and see your face, and I don’t want to let anything or anyone take that away from me. I won’t.”

That’s when you face him. That’s when your eyes finally fall on his, and that’s when your whole world feels like it’s crashing down. Taemin looks ghostly, pale as the moon and bonier than you have ever seen him. He looks so thin, so fragile, and you can’t believe you were ready to destroy the both of you not two minutes ago.

“Did you think that I’d be better if you left?” he knows what you’re thinking, he always knows and this hurts so much, “Did you think that you were leaving because you loved me, because you wanted me to be happy?”

The whimper that slips past your lips is enough of an answer for him to know that yes, it’s exactly what you thought. That he’d find someone better, someone who didn’t want to change him, someone who could accept all of him. 

“Well, guess what? I don’t want anyone but you, but my friends and my members and my family making me happy. I don’t want anyone else to nag me about dancing for too long or not eating enough or eating too much of the same dish too often. I don’t want anyone else in the world to wrestle me back to bed when I’m trying to sneak out to practice, I don’t want anyone else guilt tripping me into staying in bed for ten more minutes. I want  _you_. I love  _you_.” 

Was this how you fell in love with Taemin? Is this what you felt back then? Did it make you this happy? For some reason you can’t remember ever feeling so full of heart and spirit and soul, but at the same time it feels like you’re breaking at the seams because Taemin always lets his heart take the wheel, but you’re mind’s the one driving you right now.

“Tell me that you don’t want to love me. One more time,” he’s still smiling despite the tears welling his eyes. “Just once. With our hands joined together this tightly,” you hadn’t even noticed that you were clutching to his hands like they were your lifeline. “With your ring hanging from your necklace,” the truth is he just noticed it and it makes his voice break, “say that you want to leave me.”

Why does he look so breakable? Why would you let him go? Why would you want to force yourself to walk away from him, the only person you’ve truly and sincerely ever loved? What are you even supposed to say? Or do? Or feel? Do you want to leave? Would you be able to walk away from him and the darkness around him? Even from the impeccable white light that always breaks through the darkness in the end?

“No,” the word falls from your lips, loud and strong and immaculately clear, before all logic can stop it.

Taemin immediately pulls you against him before letting out a sigh of pure relief. You grab handfuls of his shirt and he buries his face into your shoulder, not caring at all that his tears are leaving stains on your sweater. He’s the one openly heaving now, clutching onto you because he was so afraid that you would actually walk away. 

“I’m so sorry,” you repeat over and over, pressing kisses to his neck and his shoulder and his collarbones and his temple and even behind his ear, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I love you. I’m sorry, please don’t cry, I’m sorry,” you’re surprised you yourself aren’t drowning in tears, and you don’t know how but you manage to rub circles to his back until the sobs quiet down. You hold his hands and pull the both of you to stand, and you lead him to the kitchen for a glass of water.

He looks at you as you hand him the clear glass, and despite how terribly you have scarred him and yourself with words that you never meant to say, you still look breathtaking. So he sets the glass down on the counter and holds your face in his hands, his thumbs caressing your cheeks right before he kisses you, and you melt against him instantly. Your hands go to the back of his neck, willing the very concept of distance to disappear as his hands move to your waist, down to your hips to pull the rest of you as close as physically possible, because he means to kiss this whole night away if it’s the last thing he ever does. 

He pushes you against the counter, then out of the kitchen and against one of the living room walls. It’s not the kind of kiss drowned in lust, though you look like a pair of teenagers sneaking kisses behind bleachers, but the kind drowned in the need for a kind of love that he couldn’t even properly describe. Somehow you can feel all of him in it, Taemin in the rawest, truest form, and he can feel all of you, every shared memory and every smile and every wish and every lie and every truth, and it sounds nuts and completely unlike him, but he’s convinced that this has to be that true love’s kiss that every romantic ever talks about. Time itself seems to stop for the both of you, just as a wave of incredible happiness and overwhelming mutual admiration washes over both of you, and your pressed lips turn up at the corners because this is it. You are it.

“Taemin-ah! _Lee Taemin, for fuck’s sake_ — Oh, thank fuck!” Kim Jongin bursts through your front door, suit disheveled and tie hung loosely around his neck. “Why the  _fuck_  would you send me a text like that and not answer any of my calls?!” he’s yelling, but Taemin refuses to let your lips go, not even for a breath of air and you find yourself wanting to chuckle. Jongin looks around, sees the suitcases, the state of Taemin’s makeup (some of it which he notices smudged on your sweater) and the stains on your face, and sighs. 

“Can you stop making out like the world is ending for a hot second? I’m really happy that you’re making up and all, but do you even know what he texted me?” he yells as Taemin hums and lets his tongue run through your lower lip, even throwing in a nibble on it for just a second, causing you to smile a bit wider. “He said: ‘I don’t want to be alive anymore.’ Can you fucking believe that? I thought I was going to find him face down floating down the Han River or something!” Taemin plants kisses down your neck as he giggles. 

“I’ve looked everywhere for you! Dispatch took like two hundred pictures of me and Wonshik running around like two fucking idiots trying to find you — you know what? Fuck it, I’m too drunk for this,” Jongin is more amused than exasperated, and really too grateful that you’re back, but his eyes are still narrowed when Taemin finally settles for holding you against his chest as he faces his best friend. 

“Thank you,” he says sincerely, and Jongin rolls his eyes.

“Whatever. Now get off of each other and make me some ramen,” the dark-haired boy moves to the kitchen and sits on your breakfast table, setting down his jacket and taking off his tie. You drop your arms from Taemin’s frame and walk over to the kitchen, Taemin following closely behind. Despite the fact that he’s been running all over Seoul for the past hour, Jongin smiles all too brilliantly at you when you turn to look at him as you prepare his requested dish, and as you heat up the water, you listen in on the other two’s conversation, light and happy and completely normal. 

You’re delighted to hear Taemin’s laugh again, to hear him exchange funny anecdotes with Jongin when the ramen’s finally ready, to hear him call Jongin the eternal third wheel again (to which Jongin answers with: “Hey, if it wasn’t for me, this relationship would never even work, alright?” and Taemin never knew, but Jongin was the person who actually convinced you to come back and confront Taemin one last time, because he’s always been the one to tell you that Taemin will never leave you and that you’ll never leave him), to watch as they squabble about Jongin’s duties as a best friend and yours as a girlfriend, to laugh when Taemin yells at Jongin for kissing your forehead as he heads out of your apartment, to look into his eyes and really look once he’s shut the door.

“I love you.” It feels like you’ve said it a hundred times tonight, and it’s still not enough. 

“I love you,” he says right back, and he’s never meant it more in his entire life.

Maybe the both of you really are the stuff of fairytales.


End file.
